In other words, we’re just getting warmed up, with regard to being confronted by our Limiting Beliefs. We can expect several big Ego Deaths in the process – situations where we Feel like “We’d rather Die.” The more work we can do now to Embrace our Held, Denied, Resisted, or Rejected Emotions and Personal History, the easier the next several months will be for us. And by the way, when we keep running into other people that express an Emotion that makes us uncomfortable, that’s a good sign that we’re probably Denying just that Emotion. When we Lovingly Empathize with Feelings that we’re used to suppressing, especially in situations where we Feel like We’d rather Die than surrender to it, significant Rewards await us. Here’s a good way to start…

from Nick Ortner’s great new book, The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief (pp.27-34), which is useful for a lot more than literal Pain. Goddess knows our Karma is a Pain!

The Good News is that after May 24, asteroid Karma leaves Pisces, so the Emotional intensity should be reduced. Any work you do before May 24 will be more complete, but after May 24 Spirit will be a lot more Present, even if you have no idea what She has in mind. (Aries is all Intuitive and very Future-oriented, so to thrive in Aries you have to Trust a lot, follow your Guidance, and not try to Explain yourself to anyone.)

I know, Karma is dead, though in any situation where we aren’t fully Present with all of our Emotions, at even the most subtle level, rumors of its demise may seen exaggerated. And the problem with Karma has always been that our Karma defines our Comfort Zone. In order to Expand beyond our Limiting Beliefs, we need to be willing to step outside of our Comfort Zone. It’s not that our Karma has us in its grip, it’s that we have our Karma in our grip. Given the opportunity to Let Go of our Karma, we almost always turn it down!

Next time we’re in a situation that we’ve seen before, which has always or almost always ended up badly, this time we can Create a different outcome. But we have to be willing to do it – which isn’t easy, because it means thinking, feeling, and Acting contrary to our Habitual Reactions – and we actually have to do it! The process of changing a Habit works like this.

We execute the Habit, then we realize that we’ve done it again, and we feel bad. We might even have collaborators in making ourselves feel bad. So this is the place where we intervene. Noticing that we’re feeling bad, we Lovingly Embrace our bad-feeling self. “You poor Doofus, you’re feeling bad about that again, aren’t you.” Maybe we’ve already reached for the Chocolate. “The Chocolate helps a little, doesn’t it Sweetheart.” Once we give ourselves a Reward (and a tad of Self-Love is a great Reward, better even than Chocolate or Ice Cream) instead of an admonishment, the chemistry Changes.

Now, next time the Habit takes over and we fall into that Programmed behavior or thought pattern, we’ll Notice the Pattern a little sooner. The sooner we Notice, the easier it is to shift from self-abandonment to Self-Love. “Oh yes, that again – we recognize that Habit now, don’t we. Congratulations! Recognizing the Pattern is the first step toward Conscious Action!” Each time the Habit arises, we’ll Notice it a little sooner, and each time it will be easier to Empathize with ourselves. We really are Victims of our Programming, and we can rescue ourselves by Witnessing ourselves Lovingly.

This may take months of gradual Change, but the longer it takes, the deeper the Pattern, and the more Rewarding the Change will be in terms of our no longer sabotaging ourself. So the longer it takes, the more Self-Love we deserve. If we backslide, no worries, “You poor Sweetie, you backed up on that one, didn’t you. Well, that’s inevitable. We’ll make it up next time.” After a while we start to learn what triggers the Pattern, what things happen before it starts. Then we start to Notice the triggers, and be Loving with ourselves then.

Before long we’re vowing to ourselves that we’re going to Notice and shift before we even start the Habit. A vow to ourselves is an Intention. When we shift from self-hate to Self-Love, we create a reason to return there. We’ve rewired our Unconscious Reward system. When we shift to Intention, we’re enlisting the Unconscious as an ally, and from then on our Habit becomes something we used to do. We might not even remember that we used to do that – it will seem like another Lifetime, another Persona. You’ve just gone through an Ego Death Lovingly, and it’s sooo much easier than the alternative! If we Create this new Habit now, by summer it’ll be ready, willing, and eager to tackle the worst krap our Karma can throw at us.

There’s one other clue to keep up your sleeve. If you’ve seen it before, you know it’s a Paper Tiger. Real Life doesn’t Repeat like that. Our Projections Repeat like that. In Real Life, every day is a new adventure. In Archeypeland, it’s all just a treadmill. Once we’ve Changed a couple of Life-long Patterns, we’ll start to know this, and when a Repeating Event starts to occur, we can just hold out a couple of fingers at odd angles, say “Revert!” and laugh at the onslaught.